Five Times Arya Was Loved and One Time It Was Melancholy
by DaniellaPeirce
Summary: They've made their parent's mistakes just as badly as the first time. Modern-verse.


**_Hi, hey and hello._**  
**_Just thought I'd put this one up on ._**

**_Enjoy._**

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_**One**_

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They'd had a weird sort of interest in each other since they were younger, Sansa thought.

Whenever aunt Lyanna would visit, Arya and Aegon would become inseparable for almost the entire time. When they weren't arguing, of course.

When they did, Sansa's little sister had sort out Jon- Aegon's half brother, aunt Lyanna's born-out-of-wedlock son- whom Arya treated more of a brother than her actual brothers, and wouldn't so much as glance at the Silver Prince.

Sansa had to admit, though, that Aegon Targaryen was handsome. Blue eyes that looked almost purple in the right light, along with the signature white-blonde hair of the Targaryen line.

Sansa didn't know what it was about her baby sister that the Targaryen boys found so attractive, after all, Arya did look more horse than girl sometimes; especially when she smiled.

But when someone at school teased her of it, Sansa calmly pulls Arya away from the boy(who'd just had his shins kicked until they'd bruised) and with the infinite knowledge of her eleven years simply says, "Don't waste your time on them, Arya. I think your pretty."

Sansa can see her sister's pretty, grey eyes are misty with tears, and it makes her want to hurt the boy who'd made her strong, wild sister cry. Arya cocks her braided head to the side, and a sweet smile spreads across her long, horsey face. Arya's skinny arms wrap around Sansa's waist in a hug so quick that Sansa can't hug back in time.

"Thank you, Sansa." Arya says softly. And then the sneaky, hard, vulpine look comes about her again, and it's the Arya that Sansa has grown used to. "But I don't care what a stupid, bull-headed boy thinks about me." Then she stalks back to the black-haired boy who's in Sansa's year, who seems quiet and apologetic until she kicks him and runs off, him giving chase. And he pulls her hair and she punches him before bounding over to the playground.

That was when Sansa knew, that though her sister was annoying, she would be loved anyway.

* * *

**_Two_**

* * *

When Aunt Lyanna dies, Arya is only nine. She loves her aunt (_loved_ she mentally corrects) the one who looked as horsey as Arya did when she smiled and laughed.

Now she's gone.

So is Uncle Rhaegar, Aegon and Jon's father. Arya's father said that it was a car-crash that killed them, and that she won't be seeing Aegon as much anymore because his mother doesn't like the Starks.

Arya remembers that Jon wasn't supposed to be born, that even though the king and queen weren't 'technically married anymore' or something, Rhaegar got with Lyanna and had Jon. Eila Martell had taken it as a slight from the Stark family, and because of something that happened years ago, Arya can't see her best-friend.

She thinks it's all a bit stupid, that Aegon would want to be with his brother and her. Uncle Benjen is the only adult in the family that has time for her in the days before the funeral. He holds her sometimes, lets her cry and Arya does, because Uncle Benjen reminds her of her dead aunt, of her father and being safe.

"Starks," he says when she asks him about it one day. "We all come from wolves, the stories say." He pinches her cheeks and Arya giggles, pushing the offending fingers away. "That's why our faces are so long, little niece." He lifts her from where she'd managed to climb up onto the counters and back onto the ground. He ruffles her dark, tangled mess of hair. "So, that makes you more beautiful than Sansa, in your own way."

Arya shakes her head vehemently. "No I'm not, uncle. Mother and Sansa are beautiful, I'm lucky to be pretty."

She can see that he was going to do what Father and Mother did when Arya told them that she wouldn't get married because she looked too much a horse for any boy to like her. But then Gendry lugged in, lead by Robb, and an old, fat man with a wiry beard was behind him.

Arya's father walks in then, his eyes red like he'd been crying, and the old man bellows out his name in a sad, hoarse voice; like he'd been crying too. "Ned!"

Arya's eyes sting again, and she furiously rubs at the hated tears with the back of her sleeve. Uncle Benjen claps the man on the back and father leads them to the sitting room, leaving just her and Gendry in the kitchen. Suddenly awkward, Arya looks at the doorway the men had walked through. "Is he your father?" she asks, before seating herself on the kitchen table, her feet dangling a good few feet above the ground.

Gendry pulls a chair close to her and nods.

"Yeah." He stops speaking for a while, and they both sit in silence. "I'm sorry for your auntie, Arry. My dad knew her. They were friends."

Arya doesn't know why she does it, she and Gendry haven't been friends long enough for her to be as comfortable with him as she is; but she twists in her spot and leans down to hug him as tight as she can. Arya feels him freeze for a moment, but when she starts sobbing into his shoulder, she feels his big hand patting her back softly. "It's gonna be okay, Arry. It will be, I promise."  
Arya sniffs and wipes her eyes and her nose with the back of her sleeves. "How do _you_ know?" The words come out sharper than she means them, and while she worries over if she should apologise for them, he begins to talk, and she shuts up.

He chuckles first, and it's a warm sound that Arya hasn't heard in days, so she rests her ear against his chest and listens. "My mum died when I was six. I still remember how she smelled when we went to church, Arry." He shrugs. "It gets easier to deal with the longer you have."

Arya feels guilt lick at her and she pulls back to get a look at him properly. "Sorry for what I said. I didn't mean for it to come out like that."

Gendry just smiles half-heartedly. "S'okay. I understand, _m'lady_."

Somehow through all the sadness, Arya finds enough energy to punch him in the shoulder and bound off to her backyard with the dogs.

She hears him get up and follow her, but doesn't turn to check.

They always love her, no matter what has happened; they always have time for Arya Stark.

* * *

**_Three_**

* * *

Aegon thinks that maybe she's twelve when he sees Arya again.

It was by pure accident that he did; he and Jon had been mucking around at the mall with Margaery and Ygritte when Jon gets tackled by a lanky, lean body, nearly knocking him to the ground.

"Jon!" she cries, and then both Aegon's brother and the youngest Stark girl are laughing, yelling. "I haven't seen you in _weeks!"_ she tells him in an angry tone, and a boy about their age stands off to the side, hands in his pockets.

"Who are you?" Aegon asks, meeting the boy's eyes. The boy shrugs, and opens his mouth to answer, but Arya bounds over to him and latches onto his arm. She's grown from the tiny little girl he'd known at the age of thirteen, taller and prettier if it were possible. Arya's not quite as horsey when she smiles now, and Aegon thinks that she's prettier than Margery Tyrell even.

"This is Gendry. His dad is friends with father." She tells him, eyes guarded, as if to say: '_You be mean to him and I'll hurt you._'

Margaery mutters something about interrupting being rude, but both Gendry and Arya don't seem to care, instead Arya drags the boy off to K-Mart. Aegon remembers when it was him she dragged, when they were as thick as thieves, and finds that he misses it very much.

He's too busy thinking that he doesn't notice Arya come running back to them until she's three feet from him. She grins and tugs on his hand and drags him to where the Gendry boy stands waiting. Jon and Ygritte follow, smiling to each other.

"Have I ever told you how much I love you?" Jon calls out to Arya who turns around and nods, an identical smile on her face as his.

"Yeah, but you could stand to mention it more." She says cheekily. "That and how awesome I am."

At some point during the day, Margaery says that she has to go home, and by the looks of it, it makes Arya dislike her more.

Aegon doesn't mind though. As long as Arya pays more attention to him than Gendry, he doesn't care if she murders someone and blames him.

* * *

**_Four_**

* * *

Rickon is always in trouble.

Ever since he was little. Sansa says it's because he's always angry and taking it out on the people around him. Arya says it's because Stark's have wolf blood and wolves are wolves. "You're like me," she'd say, when everyone else tells him off for something he can't control. "Don't listen to Sansa or mother; they don't understand. They're Tully, not Stark." And then she ruffles his hair and offers to take him to the little ice-cream shop on the corner. That's why Rickon is sure Arya is his favourite sister; she gets him where Sansa would throw her manicured hands up in defeat.

When he's fifteen, their father dies. Rickon gets worse. Even manages to get himself in juvie after he'd beaten the crap out of the mayor's son, Joffrey. Arya had helped, and was thrown into a holding cell in town until Joffrey's older brother, Gendry, bailed her out.

She visited him everyday, where the rest of their family _'didn't have the time'_. He's not stupid, he knows that he's the failure of the Stark family.

But some days he just wishes his mother would give a shit about him again.

Arya rocks up at his apartment one day, a wild look in her eyes as she told him that Robb had been killed, that mother was dead too. There weren't any tears in her eyes, any sort of sadness; only anger, and a wild, fuelled rage. One he'd felt himself many times over the years.

Then she smiles; an evil look with the rage in her eyes. "We'll kill them all." She says, eyes as grey as his and hard as stone, as unyielding as her tone.

Rickon nods. "Every last one." He promises.

* * *

**_Five_**

* * *

Arianne Martell never liked Arya when they were younger. And when she hears that Aegon plans to marry her, Arianne is sure it'll only get worse. Aunt Eila hates anything to do with the Starks, and tells Arrianne to divorce Aegon. But it's Targaryen custom for the men to take two wives, like their ancestor, Aegon the Conqueror did, though Arrianne finds herself asking him one night, "Did you ever love me?"

Aegon pauses and will not meet her eyes. It's enough. Arrianne sits on a chair by the bed, book still in her hands. "I know it was an arranged marriage, but I've grown to love you, to respect you. How could you do this to me?"

"I love her." He says softly, pleadingly, and she feels jealousy raise its head.

But she does eventually grow to love Arya Stark, moreso than she loves Aegon. When Arianne meets the love of her life and Arya doesn't tell their husband that he's being cuckolded, Arianne's respect for the girl grows.

So, when Arya's firstborn boy is born with ink-black hair and '_Tully blue_' eyes, Arianne doesn't say a word, only nods in encouragement when Aegon lifts the little boy into his arms, child-like wonder on his face.

It would be their secret.

* * *

**_One Time It Was Melancholy_**

* * *

Jon remembers what his mother looked like. And when he sees Arya holding her son, all Jon sees is Lyanna Stark.

But he is at least able to get over it and is able to play with his little second cousin, while he and Arya talk.

She tells him the boy's real father, and begs him not to tell Aegon.

Jon starts to wonder when he began to lie to his brother.

When the boy, Ned, is about six; Jon can only see Gendry in him. The boy isn't built like a child of Targaryen blood should be; he is all barrel-chested and big-boned. And when Gendry holds him (Aegon is usually at work) you wouldn't be able to pass the boy off as the prince's.

Jon realises that they've made their parent's mistakes just as badly as the first time.

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_D.P~ Reviews, as always, are very appreciated, because you're a very cute and awesome person._


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